The Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE) hosted a bell ringing ceremony to mark the closing of its trading floor on Friday. Trading participants that leased trading floor booths at the PSE Tower attended the event to witness the final day that trades were executed at the trading floor.

PSE will shift to floorless trading starting Monday, June 27.

In his message during the ceremony, PSE President and CEO Ramon Monzon cited that more than the physical closing of the trading floor, the local bourse’s 64-year history of having a trading floor is also drawing to a close.

While the Manila Stock Exchange (MSE) was organized in 1927, the first formal reference to it having a trading floor was in 1958 when the MSE moved to the Filipinas Building in Plaza Moraga, Manila.

MSE divided the sixth floor area of the building into three sections: the Exchange offices, a section for the public, and the trading floor.

The 1964 MSE publication that chronicled its history also mentioned that Exchange members were assigned to one booth at the trading floor, which had direct phone lines to their respective offices. It was described that one wall of the floor had boards for posting of quotations and done transactions and another wall had boards for data on listed stocks, including production reports of mining firms.

The Exchange opened its unified trading floor in February 2018 when it moved its headquarters to PSE Tower in Taguig City. Prior to this, the PSE maintained two trading floors ? one in Makati City and another in Pasig City.

Monzon said that when the Exchange moved to PSE Tower, only 85 of 132 active TPs availed of booths and dealer room spaces.

“With the COVID-19 pandemic, these 80 plus TPs experienced offsite trading firsthand when we had to go floorless due to the lockdowns. This clearly demonstrated to the TPs that seamless trading can be done so long as they are connected to the PSE’s trading platform. Finally, when the time came to renew their leases at the trading floor, only 29 of the 85 TPs renewed their leases, making it more practical for everyone to go on a full floorless trading.”

“The use of this trading floor may have been short-lived, but we will repurpose this 695 square meter space to more productive use for our stakeholders,” Monzon also said in his message. PSE Information Desk